The doctored picture that kicks things off — four badly photoshopped heads to represent 40 years of friendship — sets a tone of fierce laziness for an impotent sex comedy about four yentas committing to reading the 50 Shades trilogy. Our lettered leading ladies — Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergen — have become so accustomed to sycophants that they fail to realize that people don’t talk this way unless they’ve found work on a sitcom. (Bergen’s re-virginized fusspot of a Chief Justice handily steals every scene.) Director and co-writer Bill Holderman would have been lost were it not for smutty sexual innuendo. Had this type of crotch-grabbing, pussy-joking schtick been performed by a younger cast, it’s a safe bet that so-called “mature audiences” would have shunned it like a lactose intolerant diabetic would eggnog. The rookie director, fresh from producing a quartet of Robert Redford stinkers, must have been eager to make a comedy in the worst way. Unfortunately, that’s exactly how it turned out. (2018) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.